Milford High can lay claim as the Central Mass. public high school with the most NFL products — four, thanks to the three-generation Pyne football family and Hall of Famer Howie Long.

Both Worcester Academy and Cushing Academy of Ashburnham also have had four of their alumni move on to pro football.

Ayer High and Gardner High each have produced three pros.

When looking at the all-time roster of the NFL, Central Mass. towns and high schools have been well represented and home to numerous players dating back to the start of professional football in the 1920s.

This two-part series will look at Central Mass. contributions to the NFL, with the first installment this week looking at pro football from the 1920s through the end of World War II.

In the early days of pro football, teams like the Providence Steamrollers, the Toledo Maroons, the Boston Bulldogs and Buffalo All-Americans all had players who hailed from Central Mass.

Thanks to an assist from Providence coach Archie Golembeski, a former player at Holy Cross, several Crusaders alumni debuted with the Steamrollers. There was Clinton's George Pyne (1931) as well as Worcester natives Albert “Hop” Riopel (1925) and Frank Garvey (1925-26).

Riopel became a Worcester sporting legend after his career as a three-sport athlete at Commerce High, when he became the only athlete in the history of Holy Cross to earn 11 varsity letters before his 1924 graduation. He turned down several offers to play pro baseball, but spent one season playing halfback in four games with the Steamrollers.

Later, he accepted a teaching-coaching position at Milford High before returning to Holy Cross, where he coached and served as athletic director for 33 years.

Ware native Red Maloney played high school football in Worcester, then moved on to Dartmouth before spending the 1924 season with Providence. He later saw action with two other grid teams, the New York Yankees (1925-26) and Boston Bulldogs (1929).

The Staten Island Stapletons, another well-known NFL team of that era, had Bob Barrabee (1931) and Ollie Satenstein (1929-32), both of Cushing Academy, and Fitchburg's Ed Lawrence (1930) on their roster.

Satenstein played four seasons with the Stapletons, who never finished better than sixth and had a combined record of 14-22-9. In 1933, Satenstein finally joined a winner and played for the Eastern Conference champ New York Giants.

In the first-ever NFL Championship game, the Giants lost to the Chicago Bears, 23-21, and Satenstein retired after that season, having played in 49 career NFL games.

Lawrence attended Lunenburg High for three years before transferring to Fitchburg High for his senior year in 1922. He later became a member of Brown University's famed “Iron Men” football team of 1926, which went 9–1, and played all but two minutes against Yale, Dartmouth and Harvard.

His two NFL seasons were spent with the Boston Bulldogs in 1929 and the Stapletons in 1930.

Leominster High legend Lou Little made a big name for himself captaining the 1910 team to an undefeated season, including two victories that year against archrival Fitchburg. He later became an All-American tackle at the University of Pennsylvania.

He then spent the 1920-21 seasons with the Buffalo All-Americans of the American Professional Football Association before becoming head coach at Columbia. He is probably best known for leading Columbia to an upset of powerhouse Stanford in the 1934 Rose Bowl, still regarded as one of the greatest victories in college football history.

At about the same time, Worcester native Bruno Haas became one of the first individuals to play both pro football and baseball. While attending Worcester Academy, Haas met Roy McGillicuddy, the son of Connie Mack, and a month after he graduated in 1915, he joined the pitching staff of Mack's Philadelphia Athletics.

Haas wound up setting a rather inauspicious record in his major league debut by walking 15 batters to set an American League record.

He pitched in just five other major league games before trying his luck in football as a halfback with the Akron Pros and Cleveland Indians (1921), and later the Dayton Triangles (1922).

Other Central Mass. athletes who played some pro football in the 1920s include Marlboro native Harry Curran, who attended the University of Massachusetts before embarking on a two-year career as a halfback with the Chicago Cardinals (1920-21).

Clinton High graduate Tom McNamara played a total of three seasons as a fullback-guard with the Toledo Maroons (1923) and Detroit Panthers (1925-26), while Worcester Academy's Al Miller spent seven games in the backfield for the Boston Bulldogs of 1929.

Longtime Leominster fans recall Ronnie Cahill as one of the greatest running backs in Blue Devils football history. After a post-grad year at Horace Mann Prep, Cahill played at Holy Cross before he was signed by the Chicago Cardinals in 1943 as a replacement for quarterback Bud Schwenk, who joined the armed forces.

Cahill played in 10 games at quarterback, all losses by the Cardinals, and threw three touchdown passes but also led the league in interceptions with 21. In 1946, Cahill signed with the Buffalo Bisons of the newly formed All-America Football Conference, but didn't appear in any games.

Curtis “Bozo” Rogers was an outstanding football player at Westboro High, where he graduated in 1931, and was among the inaugural inductees into that high school's hall of fame in 1995. After attending Villanova, he spent four seasons as a tackle with the NFL's Detroit Lions from 1938-40 and 1944.

A legend at Cushing Academy, Ray “Scooter” McLean transferred to the prep school as a sophomore and was as good at baseball and basketball as he was at football. He later played at Saint Anselm College before being drafted in 1940 by the Chicago Bears in the 21st round.

He spent a total of eight seasons with the Bears as a halfback and quarterback, playing on both sides of the ball and catching 103 passes for over 2,200 yards and 21 touchdowns. He also had 18 career interceptions and, on special teams, returned three punts for touchdowns.

After his playing career ended, McLean served as an assistant coach at Green Bay for several seasons before taking over the head job in 1958. He is probably best remembered for preceding Vince Lombardi as coach of the Packers.

Ed McNamara, another product of Clinton, also attended Holy Cross before he was drafted by the New York Giants in 1943. He made only one appearance in an NFL game, playing tackle for Pittsburgh in 1945.

The city of Gardner can claim three professional players, each of whom originally brought individual glory to the Wildcats' football teams during different generations.

The first was Walt Dubzinski, who played fullback and captained the 1936 Gardner High team to a 7-2 record. After high school, he moved on to Boston College where he embarked on a hall of fame career there.

Under legendary coach Frank Leahy, Dubzinski joined teammates Mike Holovak, Chet Gladchuk, Charley O'Rourke and Eugene Goordeault in a pair of bowl games. The Eagles lost to Clemson in the 1940 Cotton Bowl before capturing the national title in 1941 with a Sugar Bowl victory over Tennessee. That season, Boston College was undefeated and untied at 11-0.

After service in the Coast Guard, Dubzinski played center for a pair of pro seasons, one with the New York Giants in 1943 and later with the Boston Yanks in 1944 before embarking on a high school coaching career.

After one season as head coach at Fitchburg High in 1945, Dubzinski began a 20-year career coaching Gardner football. From 1946-65, he created a Central Mass. dynasty with 130 wins and landed in the Massachusetts High School Football Coaches Hall of Fame.

Other Gardnerites — Frank Morze of the San Francisco 49ers and the San Diego Chargers' Jacques Cesaire — will be among the players of recent fame that we will look at in next week's column.